Miraculous and the Ink Machine
by Mewx42
Summary: The story is about Marinette and her friends journey through Bendy and the Ink Machine and how they work together to survive and get out of the studio. In this story Henry is Nathaniel's father cause you know Nathaniel's an artist and Henry's an animator so I thought it would fit. Nathaniel brings everyone along with him and his dad to see the studio. Read and find out what happens
1. Chapter 1

**Miraculous & the Ink Machine**

It was a regular day for Marinette and the gang at school and all of them were heading to the cafeteria to eat lunch together. "Man, I thought that test would never end!" Marinette complained. Alya then laughed at what Marinette said, "Ha-ha, History isn't your favorite subject is it." Marinette grunted at Alya a little bit, but everyone started to comfort her and said that she was only teasing.

Once everyone got their lunches and started to head for a table Marinette noticed Nathaniel looking more spaced out than usual. So, she decided to see what was up with him. "Hey you guys go on ahead there's something I need to check on." Everyone said okay and went off to find a table, then Marinette went to talk with Nathanial.

"Hey Nathaniel", he heard someone say his name, then he turned around to see who it was. To his surprise it was Marinette, "M-Marinette…um what do you want." Nathaniel stuttered cutely.

"Well you looked like you were deep in thought about something are you okay." Marinette asked him. "Well um… its ugh." Nathaniel was having a hard time explaining himself. "If its personal I understand and- ", Nathaniel then cut her off. "No-no its not that, well you see yesterday my dad got a letter from an old colleague he used to work for who he hasn't heard from in over 30 years!"

Marinette was surprised to hear this, someone trying to reach out to somebody who hasn't herd from them for that long is baffling!

"Really that a very long time for him to reach out to your father, by the way what did your father do, I know he's an animator for that big movie company now but what did he do back then?" Marinette asked Nathaniel.

"Oh... ugh he was an animator who worked for this small cartoon company that made the _Bendy the dancing demon_ cartoons."

" _Who's Bendy_?"

"Ahh!?" Nathaniel and Marinette were both startled and nearly jumped out of their seats. When they turn around they were surprised to see Alya, Nino, and Adrian right behind them listening to their conversation.

"A-Alya were you and everyone eaves dropping on us this whole time!" Marinette yelled a at her friends in confusion. "Well not all of it." Alya stated.

Nino: "We just saw you talking with Nathaniel and we wanted to see what's up."

"Well you could have just asked us instead of sneaking behind us and surprising us out of nowhere!" Marinette said angerly.

"Sorry girl we'll try better next time, now let's get down to business who or what is Bendy!?" Alya asked as she and the others sat down at the table sitting next to Marinette & Nathaniel. Nathaniel started to explain it to them. "W-well Bendy was a popular cartoon character back in the day." "Never herd of him", Nino said. "Not surprised about that, the cartoon franchise wasn't that big and didn't last very long." Everyone had puzzled looks on their faces and wondered why?

Adrian: "Why didn't it last long you said it was popular?" He asked Nathaniel.

Then every saw how hesitant Nathaniel was at trying to answer Adrian's question. "Something wrong Nathaniel?" Marinette asked. "I-its nothing its just well… the cartoon company didn't do well financially after awhile the cartoons didn't get done on time either and soon people started to leave including my dad. Then the company just shut down."

"So where is it exactly?" Nino asked.

" _Its just an abandon building on the outskirts of Paris now, and its HAUNTED_!"

Everyone looked around too see who said that. To their dismay it was Chloe.

"Ugh what do you want Chloe." Marinette said in annoyance. "Well I was just coming over to ask if my Adri-kens would join me for lunch, but I see him talking to you losers." Chloe said in a sassy voice.

Alya: "Well obviously he's eating lunch with his real friends Chloe." "What do you mean by haunted?" Nathaniel asked Chloe. "That old dirty abandon cartoon building you guys were talking about yea that place is crazy haunted."

"How do you Know about that place and how do you know for a fact that its haunted?" Alya asked Chloe. "Well I am the mayor's daughter after all I know everything about all the buildings in and around the city."

Nino: "We get that but how do you know that its haunted?"

Chloe then told her story. "Well I've heard stories about the guy who owned the place, before he shut it down he went insane and talked crazy non-stop and no one has seen him since. People still say he roams that studio till this day, I even heard one guy went inside the building to check it out and was never seen again!"

"Ohh come one Chloe that's probably made up." Marinette accused her.

"No one asked you Marinette, you probably couldn't handle being in that place." Chloe stated.

"Like hell she can." Alya butted in. "Yea… wait what?" Marinette realized what she just said.

"Really I bet she won't last a whole night at that dirty studio." Chloe argued. "Oh, we'll see about that." Alya argued back at Chloe. "Alya what are you doing?" Marinette began to worry at this point. "In fact, Nathaniel and his dad just happens to be going there this weekend so we can catch a ride with them and go to the studio!" Alya stated.

Chloe then smirked and thought of a great idea. "Well let's make a wager out of this, if you can last one night at that place with proof I will do whatever you say for a whole week, but if you fail I want to hear Marinette say I'm better and prettier than her in front of the whole school." "Well um… Chloe I"-, Marinette was then cut off by Alya. "She agrees." "WHAAAT?!" Marinette shouted, "Good then it's settled, hope you're prepared to lose!" Chloe said snickering at them. "We won't lose", Alya said in determination!

Once that was said Chloe left, meanwhile Marinette was trying to process what just happened.

"Alya why did you agree to something like that without my consent!" She said angerly. "Maybe I went a little to far." Alya said apologetically, then she said. "But Chloe just got under my skin and well… I guess I couldn't help but tell her off."

Marinette sighed and said, "It's okay Alya but you should've let Nathaniel have a say in the conversation too, I mean he's the one really going there with his dad and we haven't asked if it was okay for me to come along!" Then they both turned around faced Nathaniel.

"Um Nathaniel I know it's too late to ask but I literally have no choice at this point, so can I come with you on your trip please." Marinette said begging him.

Nathaniel's thoughts: " _I don't know if my dad will agree to this but this could be my one chance to get close with her_!"

"W-well". Nathaniel started to stutter again, "I'd have to ask my dad but I guess you can come along!" Then with excitement Marinette hugged Nathaniel. "Thankyou so much Nathaniel I promise I owe you one!" After that the gang finished their lunches and left to talk more about the situation of the bet.

Back to Nathaniel who was still worried about asking his dad. "Hopefully my dad says yes that I can bring her along, I mean It won't be that much trouble it'll just be the three of us", and with that said Nathaniel got up and went to class.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Driving to the studio**

Time skip to Saturday morning 9:00 am the day of the trip. Nathanial herd his doorbell ring and expected it to be Marinette. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see not just Marinette but Nino, Alya, and Adrian too.

Nino: "Hey were here and ready to see the studio!"

Nathanial was still in shock to see everyone here and he didn't know what to say to his dad now since he told him only Marinette was coming along with them not all her friends.

"Umm Nathaniel…can we come inside please?" Marinette asked Nathanial nervously.

Nathaniel snapped out of his dazed and welcomed everyone in. "Sure…umm come in." He said hesitantly. Once everyone entered he directed them all to the Livingroom and they sat on the couch, but before Marinette could sit down Nathanial grabbed her arm. "Marinette can I talk to you…alone!" Nathaniel whispered. Marinette nodded her head yes nervously, for she knew what he wanted to talk about.

Nathaniel dragged Marinette to the kitchen so they could talk. "Marinette, what are they doing here!" He said frustratingly. "Sorry Nathaniel, but they came by my place yesterday and asked if they could tagalong with us to see the studio after talking about it with us on Thursday. Not to mention they also want to help me with my bet against Chloe and I couldn't say no, even though Alya was the one who got me mixed up in this too begin with." Marinette said while muttering the last part.

" _You couldn't say no to Adrian I bet_!" Nathaniel thought to himself.

But before Nathaniel could say anything again he hears his father suddenly enter the living room.

Henry: "Ok Nathaniel is your friend here yet we got to get go"-. Nathaniel and Marinette went back into the living room but when they entered Nathaniel saw his father looking shocked and confused to see the strange group of teens sitting on his couch.

"Umm…Nathaniel I thought you were just brining one friend, who are these kids!?" Henry said questioning his son. Everyone else was wondering what was going on

Nathaniel was internally panicking at this point seeing that he didn't know what to say to his dad. "I'm sorry sir", Marinette suddenly started to speak to break the tension. "My friends wanted to come along with me and I couldn't say no, but if they can't come along we understand right guys!" She said glaring at her friends who realized the situation.

Then they saw Henry burry his face in his hand knowing he was frustratingly thinking about the current situation. "uuuuugggghhh" Henry groaned, "Do all of your parents know you're here." "Yes" everyone said at once. "Do all of you have a change of clothes?" Henry asked. Everyone showed their suitcases. "Ok well I think I can make room in the car."

Everyone became excited because that means he's allowing them to come along to the studio. Soon as everyone was done putting their bags in the car, they were on the road to the abandon studio.

"So, um… Mr. Henry what can you tell us about the cartoon you worked on?" Alya asked.

"Umm, here!" he then handed an old sketch book to Alya over in the back of the car. "That old sketch book contains sketches of some of the characters I drew for the cartoon."

"Cool" Alya said as he opened the sketch book and saw all the old sketches he did and everyone wanted to see them too. "Aww… the characters look pretty cute!" Marinette said. "But why do they look like old timey cartoons?" Nino asked.

"Yea didn't Nathaniel say you worked their 30 years ago, then why does the style look like it's from the 1940's?" Adrien asked.

"Well… actually it's a pretty interesting story", Henry said. "My old friend joey drew who helped make the cartoon wanted to reintroduce the old-style cartoons in a new are."

"So, this Joey guy was he the one who sent you the letter?" Marinette asked.

There was a deep awkward silence in the car for awhile after Marinette asked Henry that question. Nathaniel looked at his father who seemed to be very deep in thought and reached over to his shoulder to get his attention.

"Hey dad, are you okay?" Henry snapped out of his deep thinking and looked over to his son. "Yes, I-I'm okay. Oh, and to answer your question Marinette yes Joey is the one who sent me the letter."

"Oh, what happened to the cartoon franchise anyway Nathaniel said it was really popular at the time?" Nino asked.

"Well it's hard to explain" Henry responded. "I was 17 when I was still working there at the time and production started to get slow. The animations weren't getting done on time and I remember Joey getting mad a lot because of it. I tried reasoning with him sometimes to calm him down but it never always worked."

"Wow sounds like Joey was very strict about everything!" Alya commented. But Marinette thought what she said was a bit rude so hit her shoulder for that. "OW!" Alya whined, what was that for?"

"That was sort of rude to about his friend Alya" Marinette said.

"I-its okay really, he was a perfectionist kind of guy." Henry said to stop the arguing between the two. "But after a while I didn't care about the cartoon anymore so I decided to leave the studio, no later than I did that Joey decided to shut down the company 6 months later."

Everyone was then looking at each other confusingly, wondering what happened.

"So, why did he shut it down?" Nino asked.

"To be honest I don't know the real reason" Henry stated. "But I think it was either financial problems or the cartoon wasn't as popular anymore."

"So, why after all this time your old friend decides to contact you now?" asked Adrien.

Henry responded and said, "He said he wanted to show me something at the studio."

"So, what is it?" asked Nathaniel.

"I don't know he didn't say what it was in the letter." Henry said in a confused tone.

Soon time passed for the car ride and 45 minutes later they arrived at the studio. Everyone then got out of the car and walked up to the entrance of the studio. "Wow" Marinette said looking at it in awe, "So this is the place."

The studio looked old and beatdown, they even saw some vines growing on the sides of the walls. Henry was about to open the door of the entrance but he stopped for a second and every one wondered why?

Henry then felt his son's hand on his shoulder and looked towards him. Nathaniel looked worried and asked if he was okay, "You okay dad." "Yea son I'm fine." Henry assured him, then he finally opened the door and everyone entered the studio.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Moving pictures-part 1**

"Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see." Henry said as he entered the studio with the others following behind him.

As the gang entered the studio they noticed a bunch of posters plastered on the walls of the small hallway. "Wow check out these old posters" Nino said. Some stopped to look and read the posters as well.

Marinette: "Bendy the Dancing Demon?"

Alya: "Bendy in Little Devil Darling?"

Adrien: "Is it me or do these tittles sound really creepy!"

Everyone silently nodded and agreed with him. Nathaniel went up to his father to ask a question, "Hey dad how come these posters have reference to demons and stuff?" Henry chuckled a little and answered, "He-he, son the main character was a demon and the cartoon was about his adventures with his friends you know this."

Nathaniel then remembered his father telling him about this earlier and began to act a little embarrassed because he forgot. "Oh… y-yea I remember now."

"Why a demon?", Nino asked. "That doesn't seem child friendly for a kid's cartoon."

"I-I don't know", Henry responded. "Joey was the one who came up with the ideas so, I guess he just thought that Bendy as a demon would be a great idea for the character and the cartoon." Then all of them began to continue on and enter the main room of the studio.

But before all that Marinette stopped and came up to another poster. She was instantly captivated by it. It had a picture of a cartoon wolf in overalls holding what looked like a clarinet. "Aww this character is cute!" She said cheerfully. Then she read out loud what was written on the poster, "Bendy in Sheep Songs with Boris the Wolf, huh guess this guy's name is Boris."

"Kind of looks like a rip-off of Goofy!" Alya said. "Come on Marinette everyone is already in the main room." She said as she grabbed Marinette's wrist and dragged her to join the others.

Once everyone was together they looked around the old beaten studio room with wonder. There were many interesting things around them a few animation desks and a big table with old papers on it. Alya walked up to a big sign with 3 big spinning film wheels on it. She looked at it curiously and read what it said, "Joey Drew Studios". " _Hmm, self-promoting much!"_ Alya thought to herself.

While everyone was looking around Marinette saw an old projector running with no film in it. "Huh, hey guys check this out." She called everyone over. Everyone went over to Marinette to see what was going on.

"Did one of you turn this on?" Marinette asked her friends.

"It was on when we came in so, I don't know who did turned this on." Said Adrien.

"Maybe it was Joey?" Nathaniel wondered. "Do you think he turned this on dad?" Henry then paused in thought for a moment but couldn't think of an answer. "Maybe he did but why leave in running?" Alya said.

Then Nino realized and pointed out how old the model of the projector was. "Yo, I didn't realize this was a really old projector. Mr. Henry did you guys have bad budgeting or something?

"No", Henry said. "Joey just wanted the cartoon to be authentic and capture the feel and look of the 1940's era so we used tech and a lot of old stuff from that time to make his creation perfect."

Adrian: "Huh…neat!"

As Marinette turned around to explore more she saw the huge carboard cut-out of a cartoon character in the corner and wondered which character it was, "Hey Henry who's this?" She asked. Henry turned to her and saw what she was talking about. "Ahh, that's Bendy the star of the cartoons we made." He told her.

"Aww, he kind of looks cute too." Marinette said.

"I don't know, to me he looks super creepy. I mean the way he smiles and stares at you is so… sinister!" Alya said in a discomfort tone.

Then she got an idea, "Hey guys why don't we all take a group photo with the creepy cut-out so we can prove to Chloe that we stayed here!" Everyone looked at each other and agreed. Alya handed her phone to Henry so he could take the picture. Once everyone gathered around the Bendy cut-out Henry told them to smile and he took the picture. After that he gave Alya back her phone who seemed too happy about the photo. "Ha-ha, that should do it. Suck it Chloe!" She said while holding the phone in the air.

Marinette rolled her eyes as she saw Alya ranting about Chloe, the rest of the group was laughing a little at her because she looked a silly posing like that. Alya got a little embarrassed and tried to play it off like it didn't happen.

While that was going on Nathaniel was wondering where Joey was. I mean he invited his dad who hasn't seen him in years to come here at the studio to show him something and he was nowhere in sight? Nathaniel felt that something wasn't right here and went over to his dad to talk to him. "Dad, maybe we should start walking around the studio. Joey might be around here somewhere." "Ok son." Henry said agreeing with Nathaniel. He then rounded up all the kid and started to move down the hallway on the right by the sign with directions of the studio.

As they passed the sign they came up to a small open area and on the wall the saw writing. Nino read it out loud, "Dreams come…true?" He immediately felt chills after reading that.

"Who wrote that on the wall and why does it feel so… weird when you read it like that?" said Alya creeped out of her mind. "M-maybe it was an old employee who was mad that did it. Also, I agree with you Alya it is pretty creepy." Marinette said feeling creeped about the writing.

"Come on kids let's keep moving." Henry said so they can move on and that they would stop feeling uncomfortable about the writing. Soon they reached the end of the hallway and at the end they all saw a big sign that talked about an ink output schedule.

"Mr. Henry", Adrien asked him. "What is an "Ink Output Schedule"?"

Henry answered him, "OH, well Joey made this schedule for the mechanics to drain the Ink Machine daily so it wouldn't clog up!"

"What's an ink machine?" Asked Nino.

Alya who was annoyed by his stupid question looked at Nino and said to him, "A machine that makes ink, Duhh!"

"Ok, ok let's not get hasty with each other." Henry said trying to settle them down. "It's right around the corner I'll show it to all of you come on now." Every one listened and followed him to the ink machine room but he warned them to watch their step as there was a hug pipe on the floor in front of them. Soon after all of them went over the pipe the entered the ink machine room.

Every one was amazed as they looked at this wide room but the saw that the machine wasn't there. "Where's the ink machine?" Nathaniel asked his father.

"It might be down at the bottom of the lift so let's turn it on and bring the machine up here." Henry said looking down at the abyss. He went over to the switch to turn on the lift but noticed that there were no batteries for it. "This lift could use a few dry cells." He said and he asked his son to help him find cells to power it. Henry and Nathaniel went over to the left corner to see is there were any cells back there. Henry found one in a trunk and Nathaniel found one on a shelf. They put the cells it the power converter (or whatever it's called) and Henry turned on the switch.

Everyone watched as the lift brought up the ink machine and they thought the machine looked cool. "So, how do you turn the ink machine Mr. Henry?" Marinette asked him.

Henry tried to remember the steps on how to turn on the machine but only remembered one thing. "I know there's a power switch for it but it's at the other side of the studio so let's all go to it and turn on the machine." The gang agreed and followed Henry to the switch. But as the moved down the hall the started to hear a voice. Henry got concerned by this and told everyone to stop and be quiet. "Shh… does everyone hear that?" They all became quiet so they could hear the voice as well.

" _Ughh… where is everyone this place is creepy and gross_!"

Marinette heard the voice and dreadfully knew exactly who it was. _"Wait, I recognized that voice, could it be-_!?" She thought to herself but soon everyone went around to see who the stranger was. But once they came up and entered the main room to see who it was everyone was shocked and displeased to see who it actually was.

"Alright who are you and what are you doing here?" Henry asked the strange teen girl demanding to know why she was here.

"CHLOE!"

Marinette and the gang said shouting at the same time!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Moving pictures-part 2**

"Wait, you all know her?" Henry said who was still confused about the situation.

"Yeah, we know her from school, she's also the mayors daughter." Nathaniel answered.

"Wait your Chloe Bourgeois!?" Henry said in shock of realizing who Chloe really was. "Well Duhh, how could you not know who I am!" Chloe said acting shocked and appalled. Marinette decided to budged in to get to the bottom of why Chloe suddenly showed up here.

"Ok let's cut to chase, why are you here Chloe?" Marinette asked her.

"Well if you must know I wanted to see if you actually made it here and that you didn't back out of our bet." Then Chloe slid her way towards Adrien with a big smile on here face. "I also herd that you somehow dragged my Adri-kens with you guys so I just wanted to be here to comfort him incase he got scared." She said while wrapping her arms around Adrien's neck who was uncomfortable by it.

Every one stared in annoyance at Chloe knowing the real reason why she's was here. Nino then pushed Chloe off Adrian knowing that he wouldn't do it. "We didn't drag him, he came with us to support Marinette with this bet that you started!" Nino stated while pointing at her.

Alya then came up to Chloe and said, "Yea, so you have no business being here, you see we're here, Marinette is following through the bet so you can go home." Alya then directed Chloe to the door while having a big smirk on her face.

Chloe scowled at Alya for telling her off but then an idea hit her and she began to smirk. "No", she said. "What?" Marinette and the gang said simultaneously. "You herd me I want to see If Marinette goes through with this so I'm staying here to witness her myself… plus, I have no way of getting back home." Everyone stared at her with a 'like really' look. "Hey give me some credit our driver was sick so I had to take a…. uuugghhh, a cab here!" Chloe said with disgust at the last part.

Everyone groaned disappointment and annoyance knowing that they were stuck with Chole for the whole trip. "Great another kid I have to keep track off", Henry groaned while holding his fingers between his eyes, "that's just great."

"Ok let's just move past this and just turn on the ink machine." Nathaniel said to change the subject. Everyone started to follow him down the right hall.

"Ink what?" Chloe asked not knowing what Nathaniel was talking about.

Then everyone told her what they were doing before she got here to get her all caught up with the situation.

"So why do you want to turn on that gross old machine again?" Nathanial sighed in annoyance and responded, "Well I… I don't actually know?" Nathaniel was blanking out from this. I mean they were brought here because of his father's old friend and colleague and now they're turning on an old machine, perhaps if they look around the studio and do turn on the ink machine they might be able to find Joey, if he is really here? "Well anyway were probably just turning it on just to pass time and cause my dad wants to show us how it works."

Soon they all reached the turn point of the hallway but they then noticed a new opening to a different area.

"Ok, I know this part was closed off when we last saw this", Alya pointed out.

"How do you think it opened?" Asked Adrien.

While everyone started to question about this Henry was starting to get worried at this point, but he didn't want the kids to start freaking out so he just told them to keep moving so they could find the power switch. As they entered the new area they came up to 2 different pathways so they decided to go take the one on the right. As they walked down the quiet path they saw more desks and another Bendy cut out in the corner.

Alya was looking around the open area and she felt a little unease of how dead quiet this part of the studio was, "Uuugghhh… this place is staring to give me the creeps."

"Come on Alya don't be such a chicken", Nino said teasing her, while he acted all brave and such. "It's just an old beaten up studio there's nothing scary in here!" That's when an old plank of wood fell from the ceiling and hit the floor. The loud sound it made caused Nino to be scared and scream as he jumped into Alya's arms holding her for dear life. He soon realized what caused the loud sound and saw it was just a board. He looked up at everyone and everybody looked at him like, 'who's the real chicken here'. He awkwardly laughed to play it off, but Alya just dropped him and they just moved on to the power switch room.

As they entered the room it was pretty dark and there were pedestals at the sides of the room and weird pictures on the walls. At the end of the room everyone saw the big power switch for the ink machine. But Henry saw a flashing light and he read what it said in his head. " _Low_ _pressure hmm_?" "Alright! How do I get this to work?" Henry said looking at the switch.

"Wait," Nathaniel shouted, "you don't know how to turn it on dad?"

"No, I do, I just need to remember how." He then pressed into his memories trying to remember how to power up the switch. Then he slightly remembered how what to do. "I remember there was a method to power the switch and an ink flow valve to help with the pressure but I can't remember what the method was."

Nathanial then thought of an idea, "Maybe if we look around the studio more we might be able to find papers or something with information on what that method was!" Henry smiled at his son and agreed with him, so they all went off to explore the studio more.

"What kind of power switch needs to be powered up anyway?" Alya questioned.

But as they exit the room they all were surprised to a Bendy cutout standing right in front of them. "Who put this here?" Henry said thinking it was one of the kids.

"Nino, did you put that there." Marinette asked thinking it was him.

All eyes were turned to Nino and he felt like he was on the spot. "No, look I like a good prank as much as anybody but I swear I didn't do this." Nino said defending himself.

"Okay if you didn't do it then who did?" Adrien questioned.

Nobody else was admitting they touched the cutout so Nathaniel decided they should move on from this and continue their search. "If anyone is not going to admit it then let's just drop this and go."

As they agreed and moved down the end of the hall they reached a small open area in the corner. It a had a chair, 2 doors on the right side that were locked, and a small table was between the doors. Marinette noticed a tape recorder on the table and wanted to question Henry about it. "Hey Mr. Henry why is there a tape recorder here?" He noticed what Marinette was talking about and responded. "Ohh yea… I remember these", he said as he approached the tape recorder, "Joey gave some of the employee's tape recorder so they could say their personal thoughts about work and stay productive!"

Alya: "So, like an audio dairy?"

Henry: "Yes like an audio dairy."

Nathaniel thought for a second and got an idea, "Hey why don't we play the tape, maybe it might have some info on how to power up the switch!"

"Uuhh, like how do you know for sure it will?" Chloe questioned thinking it was unlikely it will have information.

"No one asked you Chloe!" Alya annoyingly yelled at her.

Both Chloe and Alya stared and growled angerly at each other until Henry stopped them. "Ok, can you two cut it out and stop bickering like little kids", Henry complained, pushing the teen girls away from each other, "It's like I'm watching five-year old's". He then presses the button and played the tape. And everyone began to listen.

 **Wally Franks:** " _At this point I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore. And I certainly don't see why we need this machine, its noisy, it's messy. And who needs that much ink anyway? Also get this, Joey had each one of us donate some things from our station. We put them on these pedestals in the break room. To help appease the gods Joey says. Keeps things going. I think he's lost it his mind, but, hey he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of these pipes burst I'm outta here."_

Everyone was processing their thoughts after hearing the tape. "Dad", Nathaniel asked his farther, "Did you knew this person?" "Ahh, yes", Henry said remembering whose voice was on the tape, "That was Wally Franks. He was a mechanic that worked around the studio and helped maintain the ink pipes."

"Why are the pipes through the walls of the place?" Marinette questioned.

"Well Joey made a way for the ink machine to power the studio to save energy when it ran, I don't remember why he did it but I just guess he just wanted to save money." Henry Answered.

"Wait so the ink machine is like the main power source?" Adrien asked amazed that a simple machine can power a whole studio.

"Sort of", Henry said trying to explain it as best he can, "It helped power some parts of the studio, there are some parts of this places that weren't powered by it."

"Wait, what did he mean when placing an item to appease the gods?" Alya questioned thinking that was weird.

"I honestly don't remember, I guess Joey was superstitious… or something."

"Sounds to me he was crazy." Chloe mumbled to herself.

"Hey there were pictures of weird items in the switch room, maybe those are the items we need to put on the pedestals." Said Marinette, then she ran down the hall back to the room to see the pictures of the items again. Alya then told her to slow down so they could all catchup. But when they finally caught up to her she was facing the other side of the hallway near the switch room. She stood frozen as if she saw a ghost, Alya went up to her to see what was going on with her.

"Marinette, what's wrong?" Alya asked her conserned for her best friend.

Marinette slowly raised her arm and pointed to what she was looking at. "W-what the hell is t-that!?" She said scared out of her mind.

Then they all looked to where she was pointing at but couldn't get a good look. But as they walked closer to see it better what they saw made their skin crawl. It looked like a cadaver of the cartoon character Boris strapped to a stand table thing with its chest open.

"Oh my God. Joey, what were you doing?" Henry said as he entered the room, shocked at what he was seeing.

"I-is that thing r-real?" Chloe timidly asked.

"O-of course not, r-right." Alya said looking at Henry, as if she were asking him and hoping that it really wasn't real. But Henry didn't know how to answer her.

While everyone was trying to process this and not throw up, Marinette noticed something sticking out of the cartoon cadaver's chest. "Hey, what's that in it's chest?" Everyone then looked at the body's chest and saw what was in it. "It looks like a wrench." Nino said. "Wait a minute", Marinette said in realization, "I remember one of the pictures in the room had a wrench on it. That's probably one of the items we need!"

"But witch one of us is going to grab it?" Nathaniel questioned.

Then they all turned and looked at Alya thinking that she would do it. Alya was confused by everyone staring at her, then she realized why. "Ohh no", Alya shouted angerly, "I am not touching that. If anyone's going to get it, it should be miss blondie over here!" Pointing at Chloe. "What!? No way I'm going to put my hands in th-that thing!" Chloe argued.

"Look, Alya you're the most daring out of all of us. I mean when there's an akuma attack you're the first one on the scene just to get a glimpse of Cat Noir & Ladybug in action for your Lady blog. Clearly you can handle getting that wrench." Nino said trying to encourage her.

Alya was still hesitant of doing it, but ending up giving in. "Fine, I'll do it", she reluctantly agreed, "But you guys so owe me!" She then went up to the Boris cadaver and reached in its chest for the wrench. But as she put her hand in its chest she felt cold slimy substance that looked like ink and was grossed out of her mind as it made squishy sounds. "Ewe… it feels gross and cold." She said trying not to gag. Then she finally got a good grip on the wrench and was able to pull it out. "I got it!" She said triumphantly.

As Alya went back to the others with the item in hand Henry went over to Marinette to ask her something. "Marinette do you remember what the other pictures were?"

"W-well there was a picture of a gear, a music note, a book, a toy I think, and an inkblot."

Henry then thought of an idea. "Okay, we'll spilt in groups of 2 to find the items. Marinette you're with Alya, Nino with Adrien, and Nathanial with me."

"Hello! What about me?" Chloe asked thinking Henry forgot about her.

"Ahh…yes, Chloe, since there is no one to pair you up with I think it's best if you stay in the switch room until we get back."

As everyone set off to find the items, Chloe gruntingly stomped into the switch room while she folded her arms angerly. "I sort of feel bad for Chloe." Marinette said sympathetically. "Ahh don't be. She's just mad that she didn't get paired up with Adrien." Alya said while laughing at Chloe's dismay.

As everyone explored the studio they found the needed items. Marinette found a plushie of bendy on a shelf in the hallway. Nino opened a closet which had a desk inside and found an old record disk on it (Thinking maybe that's the item representing the music note). Adrien found a book on one of the animation desks, he reads the title of the book "The Illusion of Living" it says and it's written by Joey Drew which got Adrien curious on what he wrote about. Nathaniel found the gear (Kog) in a trunk in the ink machine room. As they got the Kog Henry new were to find the inkblot, so he led his son through the studio until the reach the end of a hallway which had an old desk and a Bendy cutout next to it.

"Hey, here's my old desk. I've wasted so much time in this chair." Henry said remembering the days he spent at that desk.

"What do you mean dad?" Nathaniel asked his father wondering what he meant by that.

"Well", Henry said trying to explain to his son, "When the animations weren't getting done on time Joey became very demanding. He made us work longer hours for it that we skimmed through so much of the drawings. Soon I wasn't passionate about the cartoon anymore."

Nathaniel felt sad for his father, that he lost the passion for the cartoon that he helped with his friend which led him to leave. Nathaniel then notices the inkblot at the bottom of the desk, he then grabs it and hands it to his father. They head back to the switch room to regroup with everyone.

As everyone gathered back into the room they placed their held items to their proper pedestals. Henry then decided to send Marinette and Adrien to the ink pressure room to turn it on. But before they could do that Chloe complained that she should go with Adrien instead of Marinette. Henry said that she could tag along with them just so that she would stop complaining.

As the three walked the ink pressure room Chloe was clinging to Adrien's arm to his discomfort and to Marinette's dismay. Marinette decided to walk further ahead from them so she wouldn't be bothered by Chloe's antics, but as she walked down the hall to the pressure room, suddenly a Bendy cutout popped out to the side and back to the corner. Marinette was startled that she shrieked in fear of what she saw. Adrien rushed over to Marinette to see what was wrong.

"Marinette, what is it, are you okay?" He asked worryingly.

"Th-there was a Bendy cutout a-and it popped its head out of the side of the corner." Marinette explained still freaked out of what she saw.

"Ugh…. Adrien you honestly can't believe her." Chloe said thinking Marinette was lying, "She's probably just saying that just because she's too scared to go down the hallway." Chloe smirked at Marinette thinking she's going to win their bet.

"If you don't believe me fine, but I'm not scared so I'm just going into the room and turn on the ink pressure." Marinette said defending herself as she walked down the hall.

As the came to the entrance of the room they saw that it was like a little theater room that they must've shown the cartoons in before they released them. But once they took a step inside the room suddenly the projector turned on by itself and started to play a cartoon. This freaked out the three but they thought the projector might be motion activated, soon they came to the valve and Adrien decided to turn it on himself. But once he turned the valve a pipe burst and was spilling ink on the floor. They ran out the room as quickly as they could to avoid the ink. But once they got out of the room Chloe complained about her shoe's being ruined, which annoyed Marinette and Adrien but they ignored it.

When they rejoined the others and told Henry they turned on the ink pressure so now he finally turned on the switch for the ink machine. But when Henry flipped the switch the room suddenly grew dark. "Uugghh, Mr. Henry is this suppose to happen?" Nino asked. While Henry was trying to figure out why the room went dark, Adrien looked around the room and noticed that the items they put on the pedestals disappeared. "Um, guy the items are gone." "What happened to them?" Asked Nino. "Let's go to the Ink machine room and get to the bottom of this." Henry said wanting to know what was going on.

As the they continued threw the dark hallways of the studio to reach the ink machine room, Marinette began to feel something wrong like there was a dark presence where they were heading. "Guys I don't like this, I'm getting a bad feeling." Marinette said without ease. "I agree. I don't like this." Adrian agreed with her feeling the same thing. "Don't worry kids, we'll figure this out." Henry said trying to keep them calm. Soon the reached the corner hallway of the ink machine room and Henry helped everyone over the pipe the again. But Alya saw Chloe standing still facing the way to the ink machine room. So, she went up to talk to her.

"Chloe are you alright."

"W-was that room boarded up from the inside when you got here?" Chloe said who was really scared right now!

Everyone then saw the boarded-up entryway and wondered who could've done this? Henry decided to see what was in the room. "Everyone stays right here! I'm going to take a look in there and see who or what did this." He slowly went up to the Boarded-up room and looked through a hole. But all he saw was the running ink machine, "Guess there's nothing ther"- Henry was suddenly pushed to the ground by something. When he looked up he saw an ink covered hand reaching out through the hole. Everyone was terrified at what was happening, Nathaniel went to his fathers aid and helped him up but once he did the hallway was starting to flood with ink.

"We got to get the hell out of here!" Henry shouted telling the kids to head for the exit. As they ran threw the flooding studio the walls began to burst and the ceiling started to cave in pouring ink every ware. When they finally made it near the exit and just about to run through the door, the floor fell through under their feet and they all fell in the deep hole. Luckily when they reached the bottom they landed in a big pool of ink to break their fall.

Once Henry got to his feet he went to check on everyone to see if they were alright. "Is everybody ok, no one's hurt?" Henry asked them in concern. Everyone said they were fine which eased his worry, but except Chloe who started to scream.

"What's wrong, are you hurt?" Henry asked her as he went over to her to see if she was hurt.

"No, I'm not ok because my clothes are ruined!" Chloe complained in rage seeing her clothes stained from the ink.

Everyone stared at Chloe with anger thinking after all that just happened to them she's complaining about her clothes!

"Seriously Chloe." Nathaniel shouted angerly at her. "We're stuck under an ink flooded studio, some creature just tried to attack my dad, and all you care about is that your clothes are ruined!" Chloe just stared at Nathaniel not knowing what to say back and so she avoided her eyes from him.

"Ok, ok. Now fighting won't help us get out of here, so let's calm down and find a way out." Henry said trying to settle down his son so they can focus.

"But how?", Adrian asked, "the room is flooded."

Marinette then saw a pipe in the corner with a valve on it. "Hey there's another valve maybe it might drain the ink." She walked threw the thick ink to get to the valve, when Marinette finally came up to it she turned the valve and soon all ink was drained from the room.

"Hey there's a door maybe that's the way out." Nino pointed out. Everyone was about to exit the room but Nathaniel saw another tape recorder, maybe it might have information that'll help them. "Wait guys, there's a tape recorder here it might help us." Everyone stopped and went over to Nathaniel so he could play the tape.

 **Thomas Conner** : " _It's dark and it's cold it's stuck in behind every single wall now. In some places, I swear this godforsaken ink is clear up to my knees. Who ever thought that these crummy pipes could hold up under this kind of strain either knows something about pressure I don't, or he's some kind of idiot. But the real worst part about this… are them noises the system makes. Like a dying dog on it's last legs. Make no mistake, this place… this… machine… heck, this whole darn thing… it just isn't natural. You can bet, I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mister Joey Drew."_

After the tape ended everyone became quiet not knowing what to say after that.

"Well, that was unsettling." Alya commented.

"Dad, who was that on the tape?" Nathaniel asked his father.

Henry thought for a moment and recognized who's voice it was on the tape."That was Thomas Conner, he was another mechanic that helped with the pipes. He wasn't a cheery fellow."

"I can see why." Chloe commented.

"Anyway, let's go." Henry told the group of teens and they all went threw the door. After going down a couple of stairs they were met with another ink flooded room, but Henry went through the ink and found another valve and drained the room. Once the ink was gone they went though the door and entered another room but they saw their path was blocked. Not only that but there was huge writing on the wall that said, 'The creator lied to us'.

"What does that mean?" Marinette asked getting even more freaked out.

"I don't know, but how do we clear our path?" said Adrien.

"Maybe with that!" Nino said pointing to the ax on the table behind them.

"This will definitely come in handy." Henry said as he picked up the ax. He then began to chop up the boards blocking their way. Once the path was clear they all started to walk down the narrow hallway. They then reached a block door and Henry got rid of the boards blocking it. But once they opened the door they saw pentagram on the floor and coffins.

"What the hell was going on in this place?!" Alya said who was getting really scared after seeing the pentagram think demonic stuff was going on.

But once they all stepped on the pentagram they began to feel their heads hurting like never before but only Henry, Adrien, and Marinette seem to see weird images of a wheel chair, the ink machine, and what seemed to be bendy. Soon the room grew dark and everybody fell to the floor and passed out. But before Adrien blacked out he thought he saw a dark figure standing over Marinette's passed out body. He tried to reach out to her but the room grew dark and he passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

**I am sooooooo sorry that it took so long for this chapter. I was originally gonna upload this in October, but my copy of this got corrupted when I had to update my computer. So, I had to start all over on this again. Plus, I had school so I worked more on that then this. But its done now so I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter 5: the old song-part 1**

"Ugh, oh my head. What happened?" Henry slowly awoke in the dark lit room with a ringing in his ear. Once he was fully awake, he got up from the ground and looked around. And Henry saw all of the kids passed out on the floor. He first went over to Nathaniel to see if he was alright.

"Nathaniel!... Son, are you ok!" He said worryingly as he shook Nathaniel to see if he would wake up.

Slowly Nathaniel woke up and looked to his father in a daze. He asked, "D-Dad… what is going on?" Nathaniel groaned.

Soon the others began to slowly wake up too and questioned what happened to them.

"Dad what happened to us" Nathaniel questioned his father, "was all of that… real?"

Henry didn't know how to exactly answer his son, but before he could say anything Alya cut him off.

"No!" She blurted out. "There's no way what we all saw back up there is real! There has to be a logical explanation for all of this…right?" she said as she turned to Henry, hoping he would have some answers on this, especially with the "creature" that nearly attacked them.

Nino looks at Alya and tells her, "What kind of logic is there to explain what we just saw back there Alya!"

"We've seen Akumas before, Nino!" Alya retorted. "Maybe it was something like that!"

"What kind of messed up Akuma would do all of that!" Nino argued, referring to the monster they just saw and all of them almost drowning in Ink. "Especially with us this far away from Paris!"

Alya didn't know how to respond to that, but Adrien butted in before this argument turned into a fight. "Guys stop this, now isn't a time to fight." Adrien pointed out. "Especially since we don't know where we are in the studio, but if we all stick together, we can find a way out of here."

Just as Adrian says that, Chole asks everyone, "Uh guys, where's Marinette?"

Then everyone looked around the room realizing that their blue-haired friend was missing. All of them were starting to panic, especially Alya.

"Where is she?" Alya wondered.

"Wasn't she with us when we came into this room?" Nino asked.

"I bet all of you she left us behind to save herself!" Chloe claimed.

Alya was livid at Chloe's accusation that she yelled at her, "How dare you accuse Marinette of such a thing! Don't you remember all those times when we were attacked by Akumas and Marinette led all of us to safety and she went out into danger just to get help!" Alya pointed out. "Now, does that sound like the Marinette we know to just leave us like that!"

After hearing that from Alya, Chloe went silent cause she had nothing else to say and turned away from her gaze.

"That's what I thought." Alya said, satisfied with Chloe's silence, taking that as her answer.

Henry decided to intervene, "Now let's just calm down and think of where Marinette might have gone off to!" He suggested.

They all took time to think then Nino said, "Maybe Marinette went back to go find help."

Everyone slightly agreed to that idea, except for Adrien and Alya. Alya figured that if Marinette went to go get help, she would've left a note or something for them. As for Adrien, he was silent because he remembered right before he passed out that he saw a dark figure standing over Marinette, but he didn't say anything about it because he didn't know if that was real or not.

Then Alya said, "Maybe, … I'll go back the path we came in and see if I can find her." As Alya went down the hall to find Marinette, when she turned right of the corner at the end of the small walkway, she was horrified to see that the pathway was blocked with collapsed rubble and was dipping with Ink.

"OH NO!" Alya shrieked.

That drew the attention of the others so they came over to see what she was screaming about. When everyone saw the blocked pathway, they became more worried than ever.

"Well, looks like we can't go back the way we came." Henry said to break the silence.

"That's it!" Alya shouted. "I'm goanna call the authorities so they can get us out of here and help find Marinette!" Alya then got out her phone ready to dial up the number, but as she was about to make the call, she noticed that she didn't have a signal.

"I don't have a signal!" Alya shouted, "Do any of you guys have one?"

Everyone checked their phones to see if any of them had a signal-but none of them did.

"Well this is just great!" Chloe blurted out sarcastically, "So basically, we're stuck down here with no way to contact anybody from the outside!" She franticly rant.

"Worst of all, we have no idea where Marinette is!" Alya added worringly.

As everyone began to panic about being stuck in the studio, Henry spoke up to try and calm everyone down. Being the adult and all. "EVERYBODY BE QUIET!" He Shouted and everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and faced him. Once Henry knew he got the kids attention he told them, "Look kids I don't know what's going on, why this is happening, or what happened to Marinette, but what I do know is that we can't stay here!"

"What are we going to do?" Adrien asked Henry.

"Well, I guess there is only one thig to do: Press on. See if we can find a way out."

After announcing that Henry found the Ax leaning on one of the coffins, picked it up, and started chopping the boards that were blocking the door. Once he took care of that he got the door open and showed a stairway to a bottom floor. Everyone started following him down the stairs and soon they reached the bottom and were faced at a corner of a hallway, which had a creepy message written on the wall over what looked like a shrine.

"He will set us free?" Nathaniel read the message out loud.

"Uh, what the heck does that mean?" Chloe questioned.

"How are we supposed to know that Chloe!" Alya retorted annoyingly.

"That is creepy though." Nino added. "Who would write that?"

"Who knows? But we need to keep moving." Henry told them. Everyone began to explore this new room, and it had a creepy ominous feel to it. "How did this place get so big?" Henry said to himself while looking around. There were more coffins laying around and lit candles all over the room, but who lit them? Then after looking around Adrien found another tape recorder.

"Hey guys", Adrien spoke up, "There's another tape recorder here, maybe there might be some helpful information on it."

Everyone looked at each other and agreed to play the tape. Then Adrien pressed the button and it began to play the recording.

 **Sammy Lawrence:** " _He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me. Those old songs, I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace. But, love requires sacrifice. Can I get an amen?"_

" _I said, can I get an amen_?", A mysterious voice echoed thought the room. After the message played. This startled everyone that they looked around the room, wondering who said that.

"Ok who said that?" Alya interrogated, "Was it you Nino? If this is one of your jokes, cause it's not funny!"

"I didn't do it", Nino pleaded. "I swear!"

Alya was still not convinced, but everyone else could see that he was being serious. "Alya, settle down." Adrien spoke up, trying to calm down the tenseness in the room. "If Nino said it wasn't him, then it wasn't him! Plus, that didn't even sound like Nino anyway."

"Well if it wasn't him, then who was it?" No one said anything on it. Everyone was starting to wonder and get scared who or what said that. But Henry didn't want the kids to start freaking out more than they already are. "Ok, we don't know who said… that! But let's move on so we can find a way out."

"I agree with you dad." Nathaniel said, following his father.

Everyone started to move forward through the hall and the walked passed a Bendy cut-out that was standing behind a pentagram, which was strange, but everyone didn't want to think to much of it. Then they came faced with a hallway that was run down and filled up to the ankle with ink. This disgust most of the gang, Chloe most of all.

"There is no way I'm walking through that!" Chloe ranted, refusing to walk through the inky hallway. But everybody was getting annoyed with her whining.

"Come on Chloe, its just ink its not goanna kill you!" Nino complained. "Plus, you've practically had to swim through ink. So, this is nothing!"

After hearing that, plus getting angry glares from everyone. Chloe agreed to walk through the inky halls, but when it was her turn to step into the ink filled hall, she showed some hesitance. Henry could see that so he offered his hand to Chloe to help her down. "We need to keep moving forward Chloe, and that means all of us need to stick together. We may encounter obstacles that some of us don't want to face, but if we ever want to get out of here, we need to face them together. Ok!" he sincerely told her.

Chloe knew Henry was right. Even if she was bratty and selfish a lot of times, she knew to listen to reason when it was important. So, she agreed and took ahold of Henry's hand, stepping into the ink. Once Chloe finally stepped in the hallway everybody began to venture forward, struggling through the thick ink. Just as they were halfway through, everyone saw at the entrance in the end of the hallway. There was a dark covered tall man in overalls walking by, hold a Bendy cutout, and singing a weird song.

Everyone was surprised to see someone else down here, this could be a sign that there was hope of getting out of the studio and maybe even find Marinette! Henry didn't want to lose this stranger, so he quickly rushed though the inky dark hallway, hoping to catch up to the stranger.

"Hello! Excuse me! Can you help us! Hello!" Henry shouted out.

Nathaniel decided to follow up with his dad wanting to help as well, plus he was cautious of this stranger and didn't know if he was friendly, especially after what he and everyone encountered up in the Ink machine room. "Dad wait up! We don't know who this guy is!" Nathaniel warned.

When they made it the end of the hallway and looked to the corner where the stranger was going. They were shocked to find a dead end with nothing but the Bendy cutout, standing in front of another pentagram.

Henry: "Where the hell did he go?"

Nathaniel: "I don't know?"

* * *

Everyone else soon caught up to Nathaniel and Henry and they wanted to know what happened to that man. And Nathaniel told them what he saw. "What do you mean he just disappeared?" Alya questioned. "Nobody can't just appear and disappear once you see them walk by. Plus, that's a dead end! What did he do? Walk through the wall and leave the cutout behind?"

"I don't know what else to tell you Alya!" Nathaniel said frustratingly, "We saw him go this way and he's not there!"

"Are we sure he was even real?" Chloe asked everyone, "I mean, we all have seen sketchy and weird stuff in this studio since we got here. Maybe he was just an illusion!"

Surprisingly, what Chloe said kind of made sense. Everybody had witnessed the weird phenomenon's that has happened so far in the studio, maybe it was just another one of those. But Adrien had a hard time believing that strange man they saw was an illusion. "I don't think he was an illusion Chloe. Plus, it's highly doubtful that we all happen to have the same illusion." Adrien pointed out.

"Well whatever we saw, lets just forget it for now and move on! Ok guys!" Nino suggested and everyone agreed with him.

But before the ventured onward, Alya got curious of these soup cans she saw on the bookshelf in the hall. "Hey Mr. Henry, what are these?" She asked him as she grabbed one of the soup cans.

"Huh? Oh, I remember these!" Henry said as grabbed the can Alya handed to him. Once he saw the cans you could see all the nostalgia in his face. "Joey wanted to get into merchandising and stuff so he could spread Bendy everywhere. Also, to make more money."

"But why Bacon soup?" Adrien questioned.

"I don't remember why, but this could be very helpful later." Henry started to take some of the cans off the shelf, he then asked Alya to open up her bag and when she did, he put the soup cans in the bag.

wondering why he was stuffing Alya's bag with soup cans, Nathaniel asked his father, "Dad, what are you doing?"

"Well son, we don't know how long were going to be down here, so its best to salvage these soup cans when we get hungry later." Henry explained to him.

Everyone knew Henry was right. Who knows how long it will be until they get out of the studio. So it was a good idea to take some of these cans to eat for later, but not everybody was keen to eat 30 year old soup. But what other options did they have.

Then as they left to head out the next door, they found it locked and it could only be open if all 3 power grids were on!

"What's with all these doors being powered by different sources?" Ayla questioned frustratingly.

Henry remembered where he saw each power grid in and he assigned three of the kids to go to each one. Alya and Nino turned on the power grids in the shrine room and Adrian turned on the one in-between the soup can shelf. When all of them were activated it powered the switch. And Henry was able to get the door to lift open. Everyone was walking down the new path until they reach a boarded-up doorway.

Henry chopped down all the boards and the new area they all entered was revealed to be the music department.

"Its really dark in here." Henry said as he entered the room.

"Music Department?" Nathanial read the sign out loud.

"So, was this the place you guys worked on the music stuff for the cartoons?" Chloe asked Henry.

"Y-yeah" Henry answered. "But I've never been down here. So, we would have to look around to find an exit and we need to get the lights on too."

Everyone explored the room, trying to find the switch. But as they were doing so Alya came across something she found on the ground that shook her to her very core. "EVERYONE COME HERE! QUICKLY!" Alya shouted out.

Everyone came to her aid as very fast to se what was wrong. "Alya. What is it !?" Henry asked her franticly.

Turned over and faced everybody and showed what she found. It was Marinette's handbag. Everybody was surprised to see that down here. But if her bag was here, then where was Marinette?

"Marinette has to be down here!" Alya said hopefully, wanting to believe that her best friend was still alright.

"But where is she?" Nathaniel questioned, "Marinette never goes anywhere without her bag."

"Do you think that creature we saw earlier might have gotten to her?" Nino said, hoping it was not true.

"NO! Alya shouted, "She has to be alright… s-she has to be!" Some tears started to stream down her face. Not wanting to think that something terrible has happen to her.

Henry saw this and went over to Alya to comfort her. Henry hugged her and told her, "We will find her Alya. I promise!"

As the hug ended, Alya wiped the tears from her face and said, "Ok Mr. Henry", she smiled at him, "And thank you."

"Any time" He happily told her. Then he got more serious and told the kids, "Ok if Marinette is down here, we need to look all over the music department to see if we can find her." Everyone looked at him and agreed. "But first thighs first, we need to get the lights on if we're going to see anything." And with that said Every one ventured around the room to find the light switch.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: the old song-part 2**

Everyone was searching the main room of the music department for the light switch, but then Adrian found another tape recorder hanging by the side of the wall of the music room sign.

"Hey everyone, there's another tape recorder here. Let's listen to what's recorded on it." Adrian called out to everyone and they gathered around the tape recorder to hear the message.

 **Sammy Lawrence:** " _So first, Joey installs this Ink Machine over our heads. Then it begins to leak. Three times last month, we couldn't even get out of our department because Ink flooded the stairwell. Joey's solution? An Ink pump to drain it periodically. Now I have this ugly pump switch right in my office. People in and out all day. Thanks, Joey. Just what I needed. More distractions. These stupid cartoon songs don't write themselves you know."_

"Wow!" Alya said, surprised to hear what the recording said. "I guess this Sammy guy really didn't like Joey very much huh."

"That's what it sounded like", Chloe commented.

"Well, now that we're done hearing that. Let's continue to find the light switch, ok." Henry told the kids and they agreed.

After looking around a little more Nathanial found an open doorway to a stairwell. "Hey dad, guys, come here! I think I found that stairwell we heard about from that tape. This could be our way out!" He called everyone over.

Everybody went to Nathaniel to see it. They were pleased but also upset. The stairwell was there, but the exit was blocked by a huge pool of ink. So, they still had no way out and they had to figure out a way to drain it.

"Looks like the stairwell is flooded. If we're going to get out of here, we'll need to find a way to drain it." Henry said and everyone agreed with him.

While looking off to the side Nino saw a power switch on the wall of the stairwell path and he'd figured it was the power switch to turn the lights on. "Hey, I think this is the light switch!" He said as he pulled the switch, turning on the lights. But as everyone re-entered the main room of the music department giant blobs of ink fell from the ceiling and landed in front of the department sign. This startled everyone and they wondered why it came from the ceiling. Henry told the kids to stay put so he could check it out.

This scared everyone, they were freaking out that suddenly this ink monster of some sort was crawling fast over to them on the floor. Henry knew he had to act fast so he took the ax and swung it at the ink creature killing it instantly.

Everybody thought it was over as the creature evaporated, until more started to pop up. Henry was doing his best killing off these ink creatures, preventing any of them from reaching the kids.

"Dad! No!" Nathaniel shouted, trying to aid his father but Henry prevented him.

"Son, stay there! Let me handle this!" He told Nathaniel who reluctantly, listened to his father of standing back. Even though he wanted to help.

Thankfully though Henry finished off the last ink monster and things finally seemed calm now. But in the midst of all of this Nathanial had no idea what was going on. In fact, no one had any idea what was going on! Why all of a sudden do these ink monsters show up trying to attack them. Everyone could tell these creatures aren't the same as the one they saw earlier in the animation department, but this made them question more of what was going on in this studio?

"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!?" Chloe yelled as she started to freak out after the ink monster attack ended. She looked as if she was about to have a panic attack.

While Alya and Adrien were trying to calm Chloe down, Nathaniel went straight over to his father to see if he was alright. "Dad, you ok?"

"I'm fine son", he confirmed to Nathaniel as he shook off the splattered ink on his hands from killing those ink monsters. "But more importantly are you all ok?"

"Yeah dad, were fine." Nathaniel answered his father and everyone confirmed that they were ok as well.

"Good!" Henry was relieved, "Now, I don't know what those things were or why they attacked us. But I can tell you all that this won't be the only time we'll encounter those things. So, everyone stay close to one another and if you see anything like those creatures again don't hesitate to call for help, got it!" He said to the kids and they agreed with Henry. "Ok, now let's move on so we can drain the stairwell!"

Just as they were about to venture around the music department the ink covered record player on the floor started to play on its own and it startled everyone. As it played the wired ditty music the door that was blocking the rest of the department opened automatically.

"Ok, please tell me that I'm not the only one who thought that was creepy!" Nino asked everyone, creeped out at what happened.

"N-No, you're defiantly not the only one Nino" Adrien answered his friend.

"Let's just forget this and let's find Marinette!" Alya said as she passed everyone and entered the hallway. Everyone eventually followed her and soon they came up to the end of the hallway where they found Sammy Lawrence's office and through the window, they could see the pump switch. But unfortunately, a pipe was leaking, gushing, and spraying ink all in front of the offices entrance. No way were they going to get through that.

"Well there's the pump switch alright. But that's one hell of a leak blocking the door though. If we could just stop that ink from flowing, maybe we can get in." Henry thought out loud.

"But how do we do that?" Adrian asked.

Off to the side there was another tape hanging on the wall. Henry thought there could be some useful stuff on it to help stop the leaking pipe. So, he went over to it and pressed play.

 **Wally franks:** " _So I get my dust pan from the hall closet the other day and guess what? I can't find my stupid keys. It's like they disappeared into thin air or something. All I can think of is that they must have fallen into one of the garbage cans as I was my rounds last week. I just hope nobody tells Sammy. Because if he finds out I lost my keys again, I'm out of here."_

"Wow, Wally wasn't very secure of his job huh." Alya said after the tape ended.

"Hmm", Adrian started to think for a moment then he got an idea. "Maybe if we look through the trashcans around here, we can possibly find those keys and open the locked closet door! There's probably stuff in there that can help us or something."

"That's not a bad idea Adrian", Alya confirmed. "But that tape was recorded years ago! Do you still think that those keys are still in a trash bin somewhere in here? What if they were moved?" She questioned him more.

"It's our best bet right now Alya! Plus, even if they aren't in a trash can, we'll still be looking around the music department and we'd probably find them somewhere lying around."

Everyone thought long and hard on his plan and they agreed on it. Henry suggested it be best if we went in groups of two and search the place. Two by two they went. Nathaniel paired up with his dad, Nino decided to go with Alya, and sadly Adrien got stuck with Chloe much to his chagrin with her clinginess. Each of them ventured throughout the far parts of the music department and came across some strange and interesting things.

Adrien and Chloe found a small room with desks in there and old papers in them, but no keys. Nino and Alya decided to look around the entrance of the music department in case any trash can around there did have the keys. Nathaniel and his father walked through the halls and Nathaniel saw a sign that said ' **Infirmary** ' on it and was curious.

"Dad why's this here?" he questioned his father as he directed him to the infirmary sign.

"Oh, yeah. I remember there was an infirmary in the studio!" He confirmed to his son.

"But why? Did people get hurt a lot?" Nathaniel questioned more. Wondering why an animation studio needed an infirmary.

"Well… remember those tapes where some of the people talked about the pipes bursting. Yeah, sometimes when the pipes did burst, they did hurt some of the workers. People slipped on the splattered ink from the pipes and injured themselves or they got hurt from the glass that burst from the pipes." He explained to his son.

"Wow", Is all Nathaniel could say for a moment after hearing that. "I guess if you think about it, Joey was careless of the consequences that would happen when he had the ink pipe system installed."

"Yeah he kind of was." Henry said while remembering the actions of his old friend with the studio.

They decided to check out the infirmary thinking maybe the keys might be there, but as they got to the stairway to it, it was totally flooded with ink. Unfortunate as it was, they decided to look elsewhere.

 _Meanwhile with Nino and Alya_

They were looking around and Alya found a stairway leading up somewhere. "Hey Nino, let's see what's up here." She called him over and they went up the stairs. They walked up the stairs and what they found was a projection booth overlooking what appeared to be an orchestra-like room or something. They both thought it was really cool. Then Alya found another tape recorder and she decided to play it, thinking something useful could be on there.

"Hey Nino check this out", She called him over as she pressed play.

 **Norman Polk:** " _Every day the same strange thing happens, I'll be in my booth, the band will be swinging, and suddenly Sammy Lawrence just comes marching in and shuts the whole thing down. Tells us all to wait in the hall. Then I hear him. He starts my projector, and he dashes from the projection booth and the recording studio like the little devil himself was chasing behind. Few seconds later, the projector turns off. But Sammy, oh no, he doesn't come out for a long time. This man is weird. Crazy weird. I got half a mind to talk to Mr. Drew about all this, I really do. But then again, I have to admit. Mr. Drew has his own peculiarities."_

"Well that was weird", Nino said after hearing the recording.

"Not as weird than the things we've seen since we got here!" Alya mumbled to herself.

"What was that?" Nino questioned. "N-Nothing" Alya brushed off what she said. Just as she thought there was nothing else in here and was about to say they should leave she unknowingly glanced over a trashcan by the desk. And she thought she saw something shiny in the trash. Alya looked in the trash again and she was surprised to find the keys!

"OMG!", Alya shouted out loud witch startled Nino. "I think I found the keys we need to unlock the closet!" She said as she got the keys out of the trash.

"Great! Let's get everyone and unlock it!" Nino said, happy she had found the item they were looking for.

They rushed back to everyone and told them that they found the closet keys. Soon they gathered around the closet and unlocked it. But once they opened it there wasn't very much inside. At least, stuff that was useful or could help them. What they did find was another tape.

"Look another tape!" Nathaniel said, noticing the tape recorder.

"Does anyone else think how odd it is that we keep finding these tape recorders in the oddest places!?" Chloe said out loud, but no one paid attention to her as Henry played the tape.

 **Sammy Lawrence:** " _Every artistic person needs a sanctuary. Joey Drew has his and I have mine. To enter, you need only know my favorite song:_

 _The banjo playfully plucks._

 _The drum thunders in triumph._

 _The bass fiddle sings with deep articulation._

 _The bass fiddle returns and sings aloud._

 _Sing my song and my sanctuary will open to you."_

Everyone paused for a moment. They were trying to process Sammy's message and what the steps were to open his sanctuary.

"Do you think maybe if we look in Sammy's sanctuary, we'll find something to stop the leak and get into his office?" Adrien asked Henry.

Henry thought for a long hard moment. I mean, they've all come this far down the studio and these tapes have helped them so far. Maybe there might be something in his sanctuary. "It could be possible. But where could his sanctuary be?"

Then Nino remembered the recording he herd earlier in the booth. "Hey, when Alya and I were up in the projection booth we herd this recording of a guy talking about how Sammy would make all the musicians leave the recording room and not come out for a while. His sanctuary could be in the recording studio!" Nino told to everyone.

"That could be it Nino!" Nathaniel engoldened his idea of where the sanctuary could be.

"Well everyone, lets go to the recording room and see if we can open Sammy's sanctuary, find what we need, get out of here, and hopefully find Marinette." Henry said to the kids, hoping that they were close to getting out of here and finding Marinette and that she was ok!

Then they all went straight to the recording studio, ready to find Sammy's sanctuary!


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm Sorry this took sooooooooo long. I've been busy the past few months with school, work, and to be honest I haven't work on it for awhile. Mostly cause I've been working on other story ideas I've had that I will publish. Plus I should mention I originally did finished this chapter but unfortunately I forgot there was the "Infirmary" part in the chapter, so I had to add that part and it felt long so I had to split this chapter, Plus I wanted a scene where I finally bring Tikki and Plagg in. but don't worry the final part to this chapter will be out soon! So now enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

 **Chapter 7: the old song-part 3**

They entered the recording room with wonder. All of them thinking on what they had to do to find Sammy's so-called sanctuary. There were many musical instruments, a recording booth, and a huge projection screen.

"So… what do we do now?" Asked Adrian, wondering what they had to do to get into Sammy's sanctuary.

"In Sammy's recording he said in order to open his sanctuary we have to play his favorite song?" Henry pandered. Then he looked over to where the instruments were and went up to them. "So, if we play his song his sanctuary will open!"

"Ok, so what are the instruments that we have to play for this song again?" Alya asked.

Henry thought long and hard for a moment. Then he remembered the instruments they needed to play for the song. "We need to play the banjo, drums, and the bass! And I think we need to play them in order too!"

"Alright, but most of us don't know how to play certain instruments or in fact at all! How are we supposed to perform the song is none of us can play?" Nino pointed out.

"Well from what I heard on the tape I don't think you need to play the song fully? You just need to play the tune the instrument makes." Nathaniel explained.

At this point Henry was trying to figure out which one of the instruments would be best suited for which teen. Then he finally decided on the instruments each of them would be playing. "Ok, Adrian you do bass, Nino you're on drums, and I guess Alya you'll play the banjo." He told them.

"Alright" Adrien agreed.

"Sounds good to me!" Nino also agreed.

"I guess I'm cool with that" Alya agreed to it as well, but wasn't very keen on play the banjo.

"As for the rest of you, Nathaniel you keep a look out in the hall incase more of those ink monsters show up. And Chloe… y-you can just stand on the sidelines for now." He instructed the two teens.

"You got it dad!" Nathaniel followed his dad's order, But Chloe was a bit irritated to not be involved and be doing nothing again.

Once the teens were at their assigned instruments, Henry was ready to que them to start playing the song. "Ok remember, Alya starts on banjo then Nino bangs the drum and Adrian you strum the bass twice! You all got that?" All the teens nodded yes, understanding the song pattern

"Alright let's do this!" He queued the kids to start and they began to play the song. But strangely nothing happened after they played. Everyone was confused? I mean they played the song in the right order, so why didn't the entrance open?

"Umm… shouldn't the sanctuary have opened?" Adrian questioned, confused that nothing happened.

"Hmm, that is strange?" Henry puzzled, " _Why didn't the sanctuary open_?" He thought to himself.

"Maybe we missed a step?" Nino guessed.

"WAIT!" Alya shouted suddenly, remembering something really important. Which also startled everyone. "Nino, remember when we were listening to that tape in the recording booth!"

"Yea?" Nino answered, confused at why she was brining that up?

"And remember what that guy said on the tape about Sammy turning on the projection booth and running down to the recording room!"

"Umm… yes?" Nino said, still not catching on to what she's saying.

"Uugghh!" Alya groaned. "So! That's probably what we're missing! If we turn on the projector and play the song then Sammy's sanctuary will open!"

Everyone looked at each other, wondering if Alya's idea could help. "You really think that will work?" Questioned Nathaniel.

"It's our best shot, plus who Alya herd on the recording talking about Sammy seems to make sense. I mean I've never really met the guy but, after hearing all of Sammy's tapes he does seem like a suspicious private man." Henry agreed with Alya while explaining his opinion to his son.

"Alright, hey Chloe you go and turn on the projector for us." Nathanial tasked Chloe.

"What!? Why do I have to do it?" Chloe questioned frustratedly.

"Because you're the only one not doing anything!"

"Ugh… fine!" Chloe groaned in annoyance.

Chloe went out and up to the projector's booth and turned the projector. When it started to play a Bendy cartoon, they all did the song pattern again and this time the sanctuary did open. Everyone rejoiced that they finally got it opened.

But just before they all entered Sammy's sanctuary Alya saw another tape recorder on the floor by the piano. She got curious about it and decided to play it.

 **Susie Campbell:** " _It may be my second month working for Joey Drew, but I can already tell I'm going to love it here! People really seem to enjoy my Alice Angel voice. Sammy_ _says she may be as popular as Bendy someday. These past few weeks I have voiced everything from talking chairs to dancing chickens. But this is the first character I_ _have really felt a connection with. Like she's a part of me. Alice and I, we are going places_."

"Alya, what are you doing?" Nino asked her just as the tape ended.

"Oh, I found another tape recorder and decided to play it. I heard some very interesting stuff on it." Alya told Nino.

"Really!?"

"Yeah, and speaking of which. Mr. Henry!" Alya called out to Henry, getting his attention.

"What is it?" Henry responded, wondering what she wanted.

"I have a question for you. I just finished listening to another tape I found and did you ever know a Susie Campbell? And the character she voiced?" Alya asked him.

When Henry heard that name, he immediately knew who she was asking about. "Oh yeah, Susie Campbell! I did meet her a few times when Joey was in the animation studio and she needed to see him. She voiced Alice Angel." He explained to Alya.

"Who's Alice Angel?" Nino asked, also wondering who that character was.

"Think of her like a Betty Boop type character. She sang, danced, and as the name implied an Angel. She was another main character besides Bendy and Boris. And she was just as popular as Bendy!" Henry explained even more.

"Huh, sounds like an interesting character", Alya commented. "Do you know what happened to Susie when the studio shut down?"

"I actually don't know", Henry admitted. "Remember I told all of you I left this place before it shut down. So, I don't know what happened to everyone during that time. Plus, I didn't really know Susie all that well."

" _Eh-hem_!"

Henry, Nino, and Alya turned around to see who said that. And to no one's surprise it was Chloe. "Hey, when you guys are done chatting over here, can we finally turn off the pump thing-y so we can finally get out of this creepy place!" Chloe told them with an annoyed tone.

Alright! Chloe! Geez you don't have to be so bossy about it!" Nino replied frustratedly.

* * *

Everyone then went into Sammy's sanctuary, as they entered there were a couple of instruments in lying around in the small entryway. Then they came into a small room, it had a desk and a bunch of music sheets on it. There was another pentagram on the floor that looked similar to the on they saw before they all passed out. A banjo lying next to the desk. (For some weird reason) a toilet. And more importantly, the ink flow pump they needed to turn off so they can get into Sammy's office! But the one thing that stood out in the entire room was the message written on the upper wall.

"Sing a happy song. Whistle a merry tune. Wait for his arrival. He's coming very soon!" Adrian read the message out loud.

Alya felt a chill up her spine (as did most of the others) after reading the mysterious message. "W-What the hell does that mean? And what does it mean by "He"?" She questioned.

"Who Knows?" Nathaniel answered, "But right now let's turn off the pump!"

With that said, Nathaniel turned off the ink pump and their dead was finally done. Now they can get into Sammy's office and flip the switch in there so they can drain the stairwell. But just as they were leaving the sanctuary, suddenly a Bendy cutout quickly popped it's head out to the side startling them all!

"AHHHH!" The teens shrieked, not knowing what they saw was real.

"Everyone else saw that right?" Chloe asked everyone and they all responded "Yes".

Then Adrian remembered something after seeing that. "Hey Chloe, didn't Marinette say she saw a cutout move back when we were in the animation department?" He asked her.

"Y-Yeah" Chloe stutteringly answered, "Now I'm starting to believe that she wasn't messing with us."

They all decided to move on from that and continue. As they left the sanctuary and re-entered the recording studio something didn't feel right. Henry could tell felt off with the vibe in the room as did the rest of the teens. Henry took a step further and a hoard of ink monsters suddenly appeared out of nowhere trying to attack them all.

"EVERYONE GET BEHINDE ME!" Henry shouted, as he rushed in front of the kids protecting them while he began axing off the ink creatures.

Everybody was terrified! Henry was doing the best he could with his ax to keep the ink creatures away, but there were too many of them and they were getting close! All of a sudden Alya swiped the ax from Henry's hands and started to chop up all the ink monsters.

"GET AWAY FROM US YOU GROSS CREATURES! WE! JUST! WANT! TO! GO! HOME!" She shouted furiously.

And with a final swing, Alya killed the last one. She panted so hard from all the adrenaline and exhaustion. Everyone was shocked and completely lost for words (and a little scared of her) that she did that! Henry calmly went up to Alya and said, "Alya! That wasn't very smart of you!" he scolded her. "We still don't know what those things are or how dangerous they can be! You could've been seriously hurt or worse!" Alya hung her head in shame, she was just trying to help stop them but she knew he was right.

"But, other than that, you were very brave and strong too! I guess if I need an extra hand when dealing with those things you can help, but only if I say so." He told her. Alya gave him a small prideful smile to Henry, a little happy that that he said that and he trusted her to help him fight.

"Ok, now that's over let's get out of here." Nino said.

Every one was heading to Sammy's office so they can drain the stairwell, but a flashing light was coming from the infirmary and it caught Nathaniel's eye. He strayed from the group and saw that the infirmary was drained from all the ink that filled up the room and the entryway. "Hey dad!" Nathaniel called to his father, "Come over here. The stairway to the infirmary is drained now!"

This caught his father's attention. So, he and everyone walked back over to Nathaniel to see the infirmary. As they came to the stairway down to the infirmary most of them were questioning if they should explore it. "Umm… should we even go down there?" Nino questioned, "I mean, we're close to getting outta this crazy place! Do we need to look around even more?"

"Nino, as much as I hate to disagree with you, we should look around in there. At least for some supplies of some sort that can help us." Adrian said

"Yeah, that is a good point." Alay agreed, "Plus, we still haven't found Marinette yet!" She also pointed out.

"Ok, let's just look around in there for a bit and then head to Sammy's office." Henry told them.

As they walked down the stairway and entered the infirmary, out of nowhere another ink creature pops up and scares them. But Henry was able too kill it very quickly with just one chop from his ax.

"Well… that was easy!?" Nino blurted out, surprised at how quick that ended.

Ignoring all that, everybody continued on. As they walked around the tiny room, they don't find much in there. Inky floors, chairs, an old record player, and a dirty old bed.

But then, Nathaniel found something that definitely surprised him. "Uh, guys" Nathaniel called out to everyone, "I think you need to see this."

Everyone went over to Nathaniel and saw he was talking about. What they saw shocked and frustrated (most of) them.

"THERE'S ANOTHER PUMP!" Nino & Alya shouted simultaneously.

"What! The tape recordings didn't mention this!" Chloe pointed out.

"Well, obviously the tapes don't hold all the answers Chloe!" Nathaniel retorted in an annoyed tone.

In the midst of them talking Henry noticed something. "Oh no, there's no valve. Where did it go?"

Everyone looked over and noticed it too. "Ohh great" Alya moaned, "Now we have to look for it. Where could the valve be?"

Just before everyone was about to search for the missing valve, Henry saw a switch next to the pipe and decided to pull it. When he turned on the switch, loud gear-like noises could be herd from the lower parts of the infirmary. He and the kids looked over to where the noise was coming from and saw down stairs that that the switch opened a door to another location.

"Do you think maybe that the valve could be down in that other room?" Nino thought.

"There's only on way to find out." Henry said as he began to walk down to the door.

"We'll go with you" Nathaniel said to his father.

Everyone was about to follow but was immediately stopped by Henry.

"No" Henry halted them. "I'm going down there, alone!"

"What?" Nathaniel gasped, confused by his father's decision. "No, dad you can't go in alone!"

"Yeah it's a bad idea Mr. Henry!" Alya told him.

"I also agree" Nino budded in. "The most important rule in every horror movie is never go anywhere alone! Or bad things will happen."

"Well this isn't a horror movie Nino" Henry sternly told him, "And I think its best if I go down there and look for the valve. Plus, if I know you're all in this room I at least know you're safe."

"B-B-But d-dad…" Nathaniel stuttered, obviously unsure about his dad going in an unknown area. Worried something might happen to him.

Henry then put one of his hand on Nathaniel's shoulder, looked at him and said, "Son, don't worry. I have a weapon with me. And if all goes wrong, I will call out if I'm in danger, ok." Henry reassured his son.

Nathaniel still was unsure, but understood his father of making sure all of them are safe. "Alright dad" Nathaniel reluctantly agreed.

Every watched as Henry went down below the infirmary to search for the valve. Once he was out of sight, they all went to sit down and wait for him to return, hoping he'll be ok.

* * *

While everyone wasn't paying attention, Adrian went over to his bag and open it to talk to a special friend. "Plagg, you there?" He whispered into his bag.

Then lo and behold Plagg popped out and began to talk to Adrian, "What's up Adrian? Hey can you also explain to me what the heck is going on!?" Plagg began to question his user about the recent events, but Adrian quickly shushed him hopping not to draw the others attention. Thankfully, no one noticed them and they continued their conversation. "Look, I need you to do me a favor"

"Anything!"

"I need you to follow my friend Nathaniel's dad down below an unknown, possibly dangerous area and make sure he's safe!" Adrian requested his kwamii.

"Anything but that!"

Adrian glared at Plagg, mad that his kwami's selfish behavior. "Come on Plagg it's a simple task!"

"No way!" Plagg retorted, "I'm not going down some creepy monster infested area and there's no way you can make me!"

Adrian continued to glare at Plagg and his glare was enough to gilt Plagg into the task. "Ughh, fine I'll do it! But you owe me so much Camembert after this!" and with that said Plagg sneakily took off to follow Henry.

During that time on the other side of the room where Alya placed Marinette's hand bag, Tikki popped her head out to see what was happening and she saw Plagg sneaking across the room. "Is that Plagg? Where's he going?" she wondered, so she decided to follow him. She flew across the room (undetected of course) and she caught up with Plagg.

"Hey Plagg"

"Ahh!" Plagg jumped, startled by Tikki. "Tikki! You know better than to sneak up on me!"

"Sorry Plagg. Anyways, what'cha doin'?" She asked him.

"Well Adrian asked me to look out for his friend's dad while he's down here looking for an item or something." He explained to Tikki. "But what are you doing here, did your user tasked you with the same thing too?

"No! In fact, Marinette's missing! I woke up and she wasn't there! It was also around the time when the creepy stuff was happening!" Tikki called back to the recent events with the ink monsters.

"Well I don't know what happened to her Tikki I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll find her." Plagg re-assured his friend. "Well I better go and follow that Henry guy or Adrian is goanna be mad at me." He was about to leave, but Tikki stopped him.

"Wait let me join you!" Tikki suggested.

"Really why?" Plagg asked.

"Well maybe if I go with you, I might find some answers about this place. Plus, two kwami's are better than one!"

"Alright let's go!" Plagg agreed, and they ventured off to follow Henry.


	8. Chapter 8

**I'm sorry to you all that it took really long to get this out. I've been really busy lately. I was meant to publish this around Halloween but time and stuff got the better of me. And as you can also see I wanted to work on my new story ideas like my new story, _Elsa of the Pride Lands: The journey begins._ So without further ado here's my new chapter. **

* * *

**Chapter 8: the old song-part 4**

Henry ventured down below from the infirmary to what seemed to be an Ink filled sewer. And in front of him was a message written on the wall that read, "Down here we're all sinners".

"Well it's a good thing that the kids aren't down here with me!" Henry said to himself.

As Henry continued to ventured on in the sewers, he didn't know that he was being followed by two peculiar kwamis. "S-Should we really follow him? I-I'm sure he'll be fine!" Plagg told Tikki, sounding like he wanted to chicken-out of their task. But Tikki wasn't going to have any of that, "Come on Plagg! You promised Adrien that you would watch over Mr. Henry while he's down here to make sure he's safe!" Tikki edged Plagg, making sure he didn't back out from this.

"Fine, but… why are you here? Your user isn't making you follow him through this creepy sewer!" Plagg retorted.

Tikki paused for a moment after hearing what Plagg said to her. Then she glared at him and said, "I'm only here to make sure that you don't screw up and to get answers for whatever is going on in this place!" Tikki bantered on! "I mean, ever since we got here, I've felt this evil presence. One that I've never felt before, and I know you've felt it too!"

Plagg looked off to the side for a moment, not denying Tikki that he also has felt this presence. "Look Tikki, whatever this evil is we shouldn't mess with it! For now, we should just follow Henry and find Marinette." Plagg suggested and Tikki smiled a little and agreed with him.

Meanwhile with Henry, he was still venturing on through the sewers until he came upon a few boards blocking the path. And something standing behind it, when he got closer to it the thing disappeared into the inky liquid. But before it vanished Henry got a good look at what the creature was holding. "Was that thing holding my valve?"

Henry quickly chopped up the boards in his way and continued walking the path to find the creature that has his part. As Henry walks along the path stumbles upon an opening on the side with a desk, scattered paper and a violin resting on a chair. Henry wondered why all this was down here? Then he saw another tape recorder on the desk so he decided to play it.

 **Jack Fain:** " _I love the quiet, and that's hard to come by these busy times._

 _And yeah sure it may stink to high heaven down here. But it's just perfect for an old lyricist like me, Sammy's songs always got some bounce, but if I didn't get away once in a while, they'd never have any words to go with them._

 _So, I'll keep my mind a-singin' and my nose closed."_

After the tape ended, Henry was left to wonder who this guy was and whatever happened to him? Henry continued on and walked to the end of the hallway. When he came up to the corner entering another path there was a Bendy cut-out standing against the wall. Of course, Henry chopped it up out of annoyance and walked along. He then entered this big ink filled Boiler room with two big machines, a lift with a crate, and another weird message on the wall that read, "Sing with Me". In the middle of the room that's were he saw the ink creature with the hat that had his valve, he went over to it to get the valve but the creature descended back into the inky floor before Henry got close to it and popped back up to another side of the room. This continued on for awhile and Henry was getting tired and frustrated, he just wanted the to get the valve from the ink monster but it was being difficult to get to it.

Henry stopped for a moment to catch his breath, when he did, he saw that there were these levers on the machines. He pulled on one of the levers to see what it does and it activated the lift with the crate to go up a bit, then Henry pulled the other one and it cased the lift to drop the crate. Seeing this Henry thought of a great idea.

" _If I can get that thing right under that crate and drop it on it, Then I can get my valve!"_ He thought over his plan.

* * *

 _Meanwhile back with Tikki and Plagg…_

The two finally caught up with Henry into the boiler room and secretly hid so they could watch over him in case that ink thing decided to attack him. But it was like watching a weird game of cat and mouse, or in this case human and ink monster.

"Well… this is boring!" Plagg complainingly sighed.

Tikki smacked the back of Plagg's head and told him, "Focus! Were here on a mission not to complain about everything!" She scolded him.

"Owww… ok, ok, I get it!" Plagg said while rubbing the back of his head, "But can we at least help the guy catch that thing? By the looks of it it's gonna take him eternity for him to get that valve! And we both know what eternity feels like!"

Tikki thought about for a moment and agreed, "Ok, let's do it!"

"Alright sorry for suggesting such a stupid—" Plagg cut himself off after realizing what she said to him. "Did… Did you just agree to my idea?" He said, surprised.

"Yeah, I'm surprised too!" Tikki answered in a snarky remark and Plagg glared at her annoyingly. "So… What's your plan?" She asked him.

"Well… umm… maybe we can sneakily go around wherever that ink thing pops up and scare it so it ends up where Henry can trap it or whatever and get his valve!"

"That actually sounds like a decent plan Plagg! But we gotta make sure that Mr. Henry doesn't see us, Ok!" She instructed him.

"OK!" Plagg agreed then the two of them split up and went to help Henry.

Back with Henry. He was still trying to get to the ink monster, but as he was trying to find a way to get it, Tikki was hiding by one of the big machines. When the ink monster popped up in the corner near her. Tikki saw her chance and quickly flew up to it and quietly yelled "BOO" in its face. The creature got scared and descended into the floor again and resurfaced across the room near where Plagg was hiding behind the other machine and he scared it too. This was going on for a bit and during this Henry was just standing still and confused at why was the creature just popping up and down all over the room like a whack-a-mole without the whacking. But eventually the ink creature stopped right under the crate and Henry saw his chance to drop it on that thing, so Henry pulled the lever and the crate fell on the ink monster and killed it. Leaving nothing but the valve and the cool hat it was wearing.

"Sorry I had to do that. Nice hat though." Henry said pitifully as he went over and grabbed the valve.

Now that Henry got what he came for he headed back to the kids so they can switch on the valve and get out of here. Tikki an Plagg peeked over one of the machines and happy that their secret mission was over too. So much that Plagg couldn't help saying out loud, "Yes! We did it Tikki!". Luckily Tikki reacted fast enough to push Plagg into the ink filled floor to hide him, (since he blended with the ink it was no trouble) before Henry turned around to see what made that noise. But he saw that nothing was there.

"Huh, thought I herd something?" Henry shrugged and continued to on.

Once the coast was clear, Tikki got Plagg back up and was relieved that they weren't caught.

"Whew that was close", Tikki sighed in relief.

"Yeah, but did you really have to push me into the ink!?" Plagg complained to Tikki as he got up and was trying to wipe the ink off his body. "I mean come on Tikki!"

"Well I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't cheered out loud like that!" Tikki retorted.

"Ok, ok, let's just go back upstairs and get out of here" Plagg told her. And just like they flew out back up to return to their user's bags without anyone seeing them.

* * *

 _Back With the kids…_

Henry finally returned to everyone and they were so relived to see he was okay, (none more relived that Nathaniel). "Ok, that should do it." He said after he reattached the valve back on the pipe and turned on the pump.

"Great, now that entryway to Sammy's office is drained and pipe's not leaking, we can go in and turn on the switch to drain the stairwell!" Alya cheered.

Then all of them grabbed their stuff and left the infirmary to go up to Sammy's office. Adrian was happy to see his Kwami safely returned undetected. When they finally got there, Henry decided to be the one to go in to flip the switch. When he entered it looked like a normal standard office except for the huge switch the room and another creepy message that read 'It's Time to Believe'. Henry just flip the switch and the deed was done.

"Alright, it's done." He said to the kids when he got back out.

"Good, now we can leave!" Chloe said with enthusiasm.

Everyone agreed with her, but as they were about to move Alya halted them from doing so. "We can't leave just yet! We still haven't found Marinette!"

"Look, we haven't found her Alya and it's obvious that she isn't here. We've looked all over so, let's just get out of here and go home!" Chloe told here as she tried to dash off, but Nathaniel grabbed ahold of her arm preventing her from leaving.

"Alya, as much as I hate to say this I kind of agree with Chloe. But if we leave now and find help, we have a better chance of finding Marinette." Adrian sternly told her.

Alya tried to fight on this, but as much as it pained her, she knew he was right. She didn't want to leave her best friend in danger if she was in any but if they got help, they could probably find her. "Alright" she reluctantly agreed.

With that said they all headed toward the stairwell to finally escape the studio. Just they were about to enter the main room of the music department again. To their surprise and horror, they found an unconscious Marinette lying on the floor.

"MARINETTE!" Everybody shouted as the rushed to Marinette to see if she was alright.

"Marinette. Marinette!" Nathaniel shouted at her as he held her shoulders and shook her to see if she would wake up. Thankfully, she was waking up but she was weak. She could barely open her eyes but managed to say to them, "E-Everyone… get out… w-while you still can."

"What do you mean?" Nino questioned her, wondering what she was trying to say.

"I-It's… a trap!"

"Huh?" Everyone was confused from that, but at that moment everybody got hit on the head and knocked one-by-one. When Henry got hit on the head, landed on the floor, and was about to pass out he looked up and got a good look of their attacker. He was tall, wearing overalls and a Bendy mask on his face, has an inky muscular body, and in his hand, he held a dustpan, (no doubt the weapon he used to knock everyone out). It was the same man he saw earlier when Henry was walking in the ink filled hallway. Right before he passed out the stranger whispered something to him, " _Rest your head. It's time for bed."_ then everything went black.

* * *

Eventually Henry and the rest of the kids regain consciousness, but they found themselves tied up together sitting on the floor, (though Henry was the only one standing and tide to a pole). Alya, Marinette, and Chloe were tide together. Nathaniel, Adrian, and Nino were tide to each other as well. They were in a strange room and faced with their mysterious attacker.

" _There we go now. Nice and tight. We wouldn't want our sheep roaming away now, would we? No, we wouldn't."_

When they herd this strange man talking to them his voice sounded familiar. It didn't take long for them to realize that standing before them was Sammy Lawrence at least what's now of Sammy Lawrence. They all wondered what happened to this guy, why was he doing this, and what was he going to do with them?

"I am very proud to have such a collection of fine sheep to present to my lord", he gestured to everybody. "Especially this delicate little lamb." He said as he went over to Marinette and gently yet forcefully lifted her chin up to face him, "Maybe I should keep you for myself."

"Get your gross inky hands off my friend!" Adrian shouted.

"Yeah leave her alone!" Nathaniel agreed.

Sammy immediately went over to the tide up boys. They instantly shut up when he came up and towered over them, "You two are very feisty young sheep. My Lord will be please about that." He said in a malevolent tone. Then he continued on.

"I must admit I am honored all of you came all the way down here to visit me. It almost makes what I'm about to do seem cruel. But the believers must honor their savior. I must have him notice me." Then Sammy stopped for a moment and went to Henry, "Wait. You look familiar to me… that face…" But he shrugged it off and continued with his speech, "Not now. For our lord is calling to us, my little sheep. The time of sacrifice is at hand! And then, I will finally be freed from this… prison. This inky… dark… abyss I call a body. Shhhhh… Quiet! Listen! I can hear him. Crawling above. Crawling!" He pointed up to the ceiling where there was bangs and thumping noises coming from above. Everyone was starting to get scared. "Soon he will hear me… he will set us free." When he finished, he left and entered the side door on the left.

"Guys, what does he mean by _Sacrifice?"_ Chloe asked, terrified.

"It means were going to be served to ink monsters Chloe! And I bet it's the one we saw in the Ink machine room before things went to hell!" Nino explained to her. Not wanting to die.

"We have to get out of here!" Marinette said while trying to break free from the tied ropes around her wrist and waste.

"It's no use. The ropes are tide on pretty tight. We'd have to cut are way out of these ropes if we want to get out of here." Adrian told her.

But that gave Henry an idea when he saw his ax lying across from them and felt that his bands were a little loose. "Wait. If I can break free and get my ax, I can free you all and we can get out of here. My ropes a bit loose if we can buy a little more time." He told the teens and they agreed.

"Ok dad we're with you. Just hurry." Nathaniel said to his father.

"Yeah, I don't want Sammy to be around when you try and do that!" Nino warned.

"Hey, is it just me or did that guy had real good-looking abs" Alya said to everyone and everyone's reaction to that was both shock and disgust. "Oh, don't act like you didn't think that too."

All of a sudden, the speakers came on and it was Sammy speaking and he began to sing a creepy song. "Sheep, sheep, sheep. It's time for sleep. Rest your head. It's time for bed. In the morning, you may wake. Or in the morning, you'll be dead. Hear me, Bendy! Arise from the darkness! Arise and claim my offering! Free me! I beg you! I summon you, Ink Demon! Show your face and take these tender sheep!" Sammy called out to his lord as he opens the big door started to left up and open. But as that was happening, they herd weird noises on the speaker and knew something was going on. "No! My lord! I am your prophet! I am your- AAAHHH!"

After hearing him screaming they saw ink spill under the door Sammy went through. Whatever got to him they all knew he was gone. Finally, Henry broke free and untied all of the teens. When Henry grabbed the ax more ink monsters popped up. Thankfully Henry quickly took care of them before they became a problem. Then they all rushed through the big entryway to hopefully find another way out. The path was blocked by more boards and junk though, but Henry was chopping it away.

As he was doing that, everyone was happy to reunite with Marinette. "Marinette! I'm so glad your ok." Alya said relived and hugged her friend. "I'm happy to see you too Alya." Marinette returned her hug. "Oh, before I forget here's your bag!" Alya returned Marinette's purse who was happy to get back and peeked it open to thankfully see Tikki was still in there who was also happy to Marinette was fine too.

"What happen to you Marinette? How did Sammy get you?" Nathaniel asked her.

"When we passed out back in the pentagram room Sammy took me out of their and hid me away to use me as bait to lure you to him", she explained.

"Wow, that's a lot. But I guess I'm glad your ok Marinette." Chloe told her, trying to be sincere.

"Uhhh… thanks, Chloe." Marinette was genuinely surprised from this.

They were getting close to the next room but things still didn't feel right. "Do you think we'll finally be able to get out of this place?" Chloe asked, still a bit shaken up.

Nino just act like what she said was no big deal and told her "Relax Chloe, we made it this far. At this point what could go wrong?"

Just as he said that Henry chopped the last board that was blocking their way, but when he did the ax suddenly broke in half!

Alya stared furiously at Nino and said to him, "Never say what could go wrong!"

"Oh, come on! Its not like that was my fault." Nino tried to defend himself.

Before things could get ugly again Henry stopped them. "Alya, it wasn't his fault it was just a coincidence. Now let's us all just keep moving." Alya understood and she dropped it.

Then they all walked up to a room that was filled with ink! On the other side of the room there was a door that could possibly lead them out of this place. But before any of them could take a step in the inky room, Henry stopped them. "I don't like this. It's quiet. Too quiet."

"Come on Mr. Henry. I doubt anything else is gonna pop up at us out of nowhere." Nino said as he went through and took a step into the ink. Just as he did a huge Ink creature emerged from the huge pool of ink. It was tall, had pointy ear-like horns, one hand was like a cartoon-y glove and the other a normal inky hand, it was skinny and you could see its rib cage (assuming it has bones), it wore a bowtie and it was dripping ink out from its body. Its face had its eyes cover by ink and it had a menacing gin-like smile. No doubt this was the Ink demon Bendy!

"NINO!" Alya shouted at him.

Adrian: "Now's not the time for this!"

Nathaniel: "Yeah, what we need to do now is RUUUUUUUNNNNN!"

Like that they all took off running down the other hallway, being chased by Bendy. Everyone was running fast as they could to try and avoid being caught by him. But Marinette didn't see where she was running and she stepped right through the floor board hurting her leg. Everyone saw this, Nathanial and Adrian immediately rushed to her side to help her and get her foot unstuck before Bendy caught up.

"Go! Get everyone out of here dad we're right behind you!"

Henry understood and he reluctantly left his son and Adrian to help Marinette so he could get everyone to safety. Adrian and Nathaniel were able to pull Marinette's foot out from the floor board, she was in pain though and definitely could not stand. They all saw Bendy coming from the corner and they both carried Marinette through the hallways to avoid Bendy. Finally, they made it through where everyone was and Nino and Alya were able to slam the door right at Bendy's face and lock it before he could get through.

"T-That… was close!" Alya panted.

When that was all over everyone went over to Marinette to see how had her injury was. "Well it could've been worse, but the ankle is slightly dislocated and the cut around it isn't too deep." Henry examined. "Ok, I'm gonna try and push it back in. Marinette can you be strong for me?" He asked her.

"O-Ok, I'll try" She answered, nervous about how painful it was gonna be.

"Adrian and Nathaniel. I want you two to hold her hands as I try and put her ankle back into place, ok." He instructed the two boys and they understood. Then Henry prepared to pop back Marinette's ankle, "One… Two… Three!" Henry popped her ankle back in and Marinette muffled a scream and she clenched onto Adrian and Nathaniel's hands who also were trying not to scream in pain. Now that was done all they needed to do was clean Marinette's cut and bandage it up. Henry looked around the room and saw an old medical kit on a shelve. He asked Alya to bring that to him and she did. Henry open the kit and found what he needed, ointment and bandages. Henry got those out and tended to her ankle. It was all done and Marinette's foot was feeling better but she still couldn't walk on it, so Nathaniel helped her get up and wrapped her arm around his shoulders so she could hold onto him and move.

"What do we do now Mr. Henry?" Adrian asked, seeing their luck not getting any better.

"Lets just keep moving and hopefully we can find a place to hide and rest." He told the kids, trying to give them some hope.

As they began to pick up their stuff and leave the room, a can of bacon soup just rolled down from the hall. Something was hiding down there.

"Hello? Someone there? I know you're in there. Come out and show yourself." Henry called out to whoever was hiding. Standing guard in front of the kids.

Then the stranger walked out of the hallway and revealed themselves. To everyone's surprise it was a living cartoon of the character Boris!

"Boris?" Henry said, surprised to see him.

Everyone didn't know how to react to this. They all were lost for words, except Alya who began to strangely laugh for no reason and just ended up fainting.

* * *

 **Hoped you all enjoyed it. Leave a review. Also I'm gonna take a break on this story for a bit so I can focus on my new story. So be patient!**


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